


Pride

by DeCarabas



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On roles and following orders, and the mages who've been brought into the Inquisition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride

One of the Inquisition’s newly recruited mages comes to Cassandra with questions, and the Iron Bull overhears.

“And what are we supposed to do, exactly? We’ve already spoken with Commander Cullen. No one listens. We want better quarters. We want the templars kept at a distance, and some respect for—”

“This is not the Circle. You mages are our allies, not our wards. Act like it.”

“How are we supposed to—”

“Deal. With. It.”

And when the mage leaves, the Iron Bull follows, talks to him. Because the Inquisition just brought in a whole lot of people trained to be walking, talking weapons waiting on somebody else’s order, and now that they’ve come looking for orders, the Inquisition isn’t giving them what they need.

Sometimes you just want someone to explain what your role is. He gets that.

Haven isn’t much of a fortress, but he watches the attempts to fix that, the constant construction going on around the edges, expanding and fortifying and finding places to put people. He watches that same mage step up to the table where the plans are laid out. And a little while later, a team of mages have logs floating into the air, a building going up in half the time as before.

The Iron Bull’s not the only one watching the mages.

“That's the picture of what a Circle mage should be,” one of the Chantry sisters says to another, after Vivienne’s swept through the chantry doors with an entourage of visiting nobility.

“She looks like a noble. It's arrogant,” the other sister mutters.

When Vivienne starts overseeing the construction, she moves like she’s doing them all a favor by deigning to lend them her time. He likes that.

People outside the Qun have complicated, conflicting ideas about their mages. It’s the lack of masks and collars that does it, makes things vague. Slaves, but not. Workhorses, but not. Cushy tower living, before they all abandoned the towers; and then when they’re brought in on a project in the outside world, they’re _proud_ about what they can do, and that throws people off. The Inquisition’s mages sneer at the ex-templars who’ve been running the construction up until now, and the templars mutter to each other. But the more he watches, the more familiar it seems.

The Arvaarad he used to work with always said their Saarebas wanted to serve the Qun the best they could, same as everybody else. Bit difficult to tell through the mask, but he figures Arvaarad would know. He says as much to Vivienne late one evening, watching the mages’ quarters finally finished. You can’t choose your role, but you can choose what you do with it, choose to take pride in it.

She tells him she hardly needs to convert to the Qun to learn that lesson. The Circles taught it just the same.


End file.
